1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a recording apparatus in which a flexible flat cable is connected to a recording head, more particularly, to a method for manufacturing a recording apparatus in which circuit elements are mounted on the flexible flat cable.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-98465 (FIGS. 6 and 7) describes a recording apparatus which includes a body-side board and a head board disposed in a casing of the apparatus, a flexible flat cable connecting the body-side board and the head board, a recording head, a carriage moving for scanning with the recording head mounted thereon, another flexible flat cable connecting the recording head and the head board, and a driver IC outputting a drive pulse signal to these flexible flat cable.
When recording elements mounted on a recording head are arranged densely, a pattern wiring formed on a flexible flat cable connected to the recording head also has to be fine, which increases resistance of the pattern wiring. Therefore, the driving IC chip is mounted on the flexible flat cable so that the driving IC chip is disposed as close to the recording head as possible.
Further, there is concern that voltage may decrease when the plural recording elements are driven almost simultaneously, and therefore, a capacitor is disposed on the head board provided on the carriage to compensate for the lack of the voltage. However, when control becomes diversified, for example, when the kind of drive pulse signals for driving the recording head increases due to an increase in gradation levels, a pattern wiring connecting the driving IC chip and the head-side circuit board is also made finer, and a resistance component and an inductance component of the pattern wiring sometimes cause a malfunction of the driving IC chip.
Further, in a case where a piezoelectric actuator is used as an actuator of the recording head, polarization processing of a piezoelectric material is sometimes performed in a state where the flexible flat cable is connected to the piezoelectric actuator. When the piezoelectric material is heated and thereafter cooled (its temperature is returned to room temperature) during this polarization processing, charges are generated in the piezoelectric material and these charges sometimes break the circuit.
To prevent these malfunction and/or breakage of the circuit, there is a demand to mount circuit elements (protection circuits) near the actuator or the driving IC chip.
To electrically connect the flexible flat cable and the actuator, terminal electrodes are exposed from a surface, of the flexible flat cable, facing the actuator and bumps are formed on the terminal electrodes. When the formation of the bumps on the terminal electrodes and the mounting of the aforesaid circuit elements on the flexible flat cable are performed in independent manufacturing processes, the number of processes increases, which has posed a problem of cost increase.